Coco Vandeweghe ends No.1 Angelique Kerber’s Australian Open title defense

Playing the fourth round of the Australian Open for the first time, Coco Vandeweghe eliminated reigning champion and world number one Angelique Kerber in straight sets.

Without even facing a break point in the first set, the 35th-ranked Vandeweghe raced to 6-2, hitting 16 winners to Kerber’s four and winning 8 out of 10 points at the net, while Kerber never approached the net. The German top seed attacked early in the second set to open it with a break, but the American won four straight games from 3-2 down for the biggest victory of her career.

Vandeweghe’s opponent in the Australian Open quarterfinals will be seventh seed Garbine Muguruza, who beat Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-2 6-3. The second quarterfinal pair will be Venus Williams vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, as the American seed No.13 ended the run of Mona Barthel 6-3 7-5 and the Russian seed No.24 beat her eighth-seeded compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3 6-3.

Monday’s schedule features four more round of 16 matches, so we’ll get the quarterfinalists in the bottom half of the draw. (photos: Jimmie48)